Intel looks set to launch Skull Canyon-NUC with Skylake Core i7 in early 2016

Intel looks set to release a NUC mini PC called Skull Canyon in early 2016. The barebone may contain a Core i7 processor of the Skylake generation. It is not clear which GPU the compact system will receive, but it seems to be an Iris Pro video chip.

In a teaser that appears to be from Intel and found by FanlessTech, the company speaks at the Skull Canyon of the “most powerful NUC ever” and of the presence of Iris Pro Graphics. The introduction should take place in the first quarter of 2016. The teaser is at Cmtlabs, an Intel partner company that tests memory and offers, among other things, the Intel Approved Memory Module Program for certification of NUC memory.

The teaser is in line with information from a NUC roadmap that came online through a Korean site earlier this year. That roadmap put the arrival of a Skull Canyon NUC type-named NUC6i7KYK in early 2016, citing the presence of a Skylake-generation Core i7.

Intel recently introduced NUC systems with an Intel Core i3-6100U and Core i5-6260U, which feature the HD Graphics 520 and Iris Graphics 540 GPUs, respectively. Intel currently has four mobile Core i7 dual cores in its lineup with also the HD Graphics 520 and 540. In addition, the Core i7-6567U is eligible for the NUC; it is equipped with an HD Graphics 550-gpu with 48 execution units 64MB edram and should be released in January. The graphics performance of this Core i7 is roughly equivalent to an Nvidia GeForce 930M, according to Notebookcheck.

However, Intel also calls the HD Graphics 550 GT3e or Iris Graphics, while the teaser talks about the Iris Pro. This could then refer to the GT4e or the HD Graphics 580, which has 72 execution units and 128MB edram. It is not yet known in which processors that video chip will come.